Brussels launch event sets targets for updated system.
There was a joint sense of purpose in Brussels on October 5 as aviation stakeholders gathered for the launch event of the SESAR Master Plan Update.
Although it has been more than three years since the initial release of the Master Plan – outlining development and deployment plans for next-generation ATM systems – an update is urgently needed, and the Brussels event kicked off the process that should lead to a new version by summer 2012. Indeed, the key message from the day-long launch event was that the rapid pace of change in the aviation sector compels the entire sector to work together to ensure the update is easier to understand, better adapted to the stakeholders, and more efficient.
Although SESAR is currently in the middle of its 2009-2014 Development Phase - turning design concepts into reality and generating a regulatory framework to support the changes to the airspace system – the Master Plan needs to respond to the constant changes in technology and traffic. Designed to be regularly updated, with continuous performance monitoring to ensure it delivers on its promises, the Master Plan can also look ahead to the Deployment Phase, due to begin around 2015.
Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU), told the Brussels event that it was essential to have all stakeholders - regulators, air traffic service providers, airlines, airports, the military and the manufacturing industry – involved in the update process. “Not everybody will agree with everything,” he said. “But there will be nobody at the end who can say they were not consulted. Each stakeholder group will participate.”
Ky listed the three principles adopted for the upgrade by the SJU Administrative Board, the body formally entrusted with the adoption of the work: simplifying the Master Plan into a more readable and useable document; introducing linkages between ATM planning to performance; and setting up a stakeholder-specific approach so that by the end of the exercise, each investor knows what the Master Plan means for them, what is expected from them, and when and where it will affect them. “In times of economic uncertainty, I believe it is our duty for the Master Plan update to come up with solutions which make business sense,” Ky said. “The Master Plan is the living link between development activities and deployment decisions. We cannot afford anymore to deploy systems without a clear and validated impact assessment.”
He was echoed by Matthew Baldwin, the European Commission’s Director for Air Transport at DG MOVE, who said it was crucial to have everyone on board. “I know updating the Master Plan can be something like opening a Pandora box with the risk that stakeholders take this exercise as an opportunity to challenge every consensus reached, sometimes at a high price,” he said. “However, more than three years after its initial release, we believe this update is urgently needed to confirm the pivotal role of the Master Plan within the SESAR programme.”
He also pointed to the ICAO's Twelfth Air Navigation Conference (ANC 12) in November 2012, which will see an update of ICAO's Global Air Navigation Plan, and said the EU needed to be ready with solid and coordinated input. This is a tight timeframe considering that most of the papers to the conference will be prepared between January and March 2012, Baldwin warned. “We expect a lot from this update campaign,” he said. “I know it will be difficult, I know we do not have much time, but I’m confident the SJU - with all its members - are able to overcome the situation, deliver and succeed.”
Eurocontrol’s ATM Director Bo Redeborn pointed to the international context, and next year’s ICAO’s conference. “We have a golden opportunity to see that our Master Plan fits in with global objectives,” he said. And he pointed out that while interoperability and efficiency were the key words in the update exercise, it had to be conducted through a partnership approach involving all the stakeholders. “We are all in this together, and we have to work together,” he said. “If not, we fail together.”
The launch event featured a host of other speakers from across the aviation sector. The Chief Programme Officer of the SESAR Joint Undertaking outlined the plans for the coming year, saying that the current draft for 2012 identified 45 exercises, including improved runway incursion prevention. Ramón Tàrrech Masdeu, the International ATM and Airports Director with Indra, said there was huge scope for industrialisation with the update of the roadmaps. “Our aim is very simple: to share and synchronise airborne and ground trajectories,” he said. And María Luz De Mateo García, Head of Strategy and Planning at AENA, warned that the European ATM Master Plan in itself was not enough to ensure the modernization of the European ATM system. “It requires absolute commitment form all the ATM stakeholders for its maintenance and execution,” she said.